Climate Change and Well-Informed Denial

On climate change, we’re politically polarized—which would be bad enough, but that’s not all. The hole we’ve dug is even deeper—as new research clearly suggests.

There’s yet another study out on Democrats, Republicans, and climate change, this time from Lawrence Hamilton of the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. Over the last two years, in a series of regional surveys, Hamilton asked nearly 9,500 people questions about climate change—from Appalachia to the Gulf Coast, and from New Hampshire to Alaska.

Across all these regions, he consistently found the following phenomenon: Democrats and Republicans who claimed to know less about the climate issue were more like one another in terms of whether they accepted the science. Democrats and Republicans who claimed to know a lot about the issue, by contrast, were vastly polarized—with knowledgeable Democrats overwhelmingly accepting the science, and knowledgeable Republicans overwhelmingly denying it.

“Political polarization is greatest among the Republicans and Democrats who are most confident that they understand this issue,” writes Hamilton. “Republicans and Democrats less sure about their understanding also tend to be less far apart in their beliefs.”

This core finding itself is not new—a 2008 Pew survey also found that Republicans with a college level of education were less likely to accept the science of climate than Republicans who lack such education. Other studies have also underscored this fundamental point. But for precisely that reason, Hamilton’s research kind of puts it in the realm of indisputable political fact. Not only are we polarized over climate change, but our knowledge and sophistication, when combined with our politics, make matters worse.

How could this be? For Hamilton, the explanation lies in the interaction between how we get information (from trusted news and Internet sources, we think, but we’re actually being selective) and our own biases in evaluating it (objectively, we think, but again, we’re actually being selective). “People increasingly choose news sources that match their own views,” Hamilton writes. “Moreover, they tend to selectively absorb information even from this biased flow, fitting it into their pre-existing beliefs.” In other words, we’re twice biased—based on our views and information sources—and moreover, twice biased in different directions.

Thus it really makes a lot of sense that those who are paying less attention to the climate issue, whether nominally Democrat or Republican, are less polarized and less sure of themselves. They’re not working nearly as hard at reaffirming their convictions, and refuting the convictions of the other side. (Hamilton’s study implies, though, that that they may have a different problem—they know so little that they may be more likely to be buffeted by the weather in terms of how they think about climate. If it’s hot out, maybe they’ll worry. If it’s cold, they’ll scoff.)

Overall, the big picture is that our society is not making up its mind in anything like a rational or scientific manner about climate change. That’s unfortunate–but it would be a form of denial itself at this point to reject the finding.

Comments

“Democrats and Republicans who claimed to know a lot about the issue, by contrast, were vastly polarized—with knowledgeable Democrats overwhelmingly accepting the science, and knowledgeable Republicans overwhelmingly denying it.”

Your statement above contains a logical contradiction.

Someone who is knowledgeable about climate change cannot if they are objective and rational deny that it is occuring nor, that modern climate change is veing cuased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations increasing and that this is mainly a result of anthropogenic GHG emissions.

“Someone who is knowledgeable about climate change cannot if they are objective and rational deny that it is occuring nor…”

This is nonsense. This is saying that the science is settled, that Climategate never happened, and that the output of climate models must be taken as fact. One makes no sense to demand that others must believe as they to to be rational or knowledgable.

Anonymous#1… There is no contradiction. The poll asked the subject to define how knowledgeable they thought they were about climate change. It wasn’t actually a quiz about the facts, theories, and hypotheses involved.

A brilliant scientist named Ptolemy in 150 A.D came up with an extraordinary detailed piece of work that modeled a stationary earth and a rotating universe. Brilliant. It served mankind well for for many centuries until we started traveling around a bit more and his mapping was causing a few ship wrecks and folks started to ask a few questions.

He was the best that science had at his time but he was totally incorrect.

This is a naturally recurring theme in great science and long may it be allowed to run uniteruppted and hopefully always be. AGW is no different.

Quote:
“Ptolemy, Latin in full Claudius Ptolemaeus (born c. ad 100—died c. 170), an Egyptian astronomer, mathematician, and geographer of Greek descent who flourished in Alexandria during the 2nd century ad. In several fields his writings represent the culminating achievement of Greco-Roman science, particularly his geocentric (Earth-centred) model of the universe now known as the Ptolemaic syste”.

You seem to eternally proffer Popperian testing as necessary and undone but here you seem to conveniently forget it.

Odd that.

Ptolemy was not a scientist. No scientific method: not a scientist. A natural philosopher was the term used up to well past Newton and there is a reason for that. Ptolemy would not have called himself a scientist either, since the term was invented well after he was dead and buried.

The demise of the natural philosopher has been a great loss to our journey of understanding. Science has always existed in some form or other since man first mad tools and lit fires. We just didn’t have a fancy name for it. Understanding these was the job of the natural philosopher and I do not believe science handles this well.

The theory of gravity is changing as we gain more facts in the same way that Ptolemy’s has changed over time. They are useful because they work in certain circumstances but neither is a fact. This is where the natural philosopher can add.

“AGW is a theory based on computer models that is struggeling to find any results that support its predictions.”

Wrong, wrong and will always be wrong. AGW is based on empirical evidence and on the laws of radiative physics. The empirical foundation for AGW has been around for about 150 years.

It has also been shown empirically that a major component of the additional CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere is from fossil fuel sources. In case you don’t know how this can be determined the answer is very simple, different carbon isotope ratios. So computer models have got nothing to do with the theory of AGW. Models are used to predict what will happen down the road if we continue to arrogantly keep on increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere by burning ever increasing amounts of fossil fuels.

How come, if you are so interested in AGW you have not found this elementary and basic information for yourself? It tells us a lot about your intelligence and motivation that you haven’t found this information.

Your posts show both a lack of understanding of science and a dislike for science. You are not prepared to actually study science. If you did you would find that what you post is utter nonsense.

I think that you do understand this and that is what makes you such a despicable person. You pretend ignorance so that you can promote your selfish and arrogant viewpoints in the hope that gullible people will be taken in. Luckily for those reading this blog, your behaviour is being exposed for what it is.

You said:

“You are barking up a tree here and Joe public is not listening to you.”

That shows that you are either deliberately lying once again or your knowledge in this area is zero since that statement is utter rubbish. Of course, in typical denier fashion you do not provide nay link or evidence for your misinformation.

“Gravity is just a name we give something, therefore I can’t jump off a building”
And when AGW is a name we give something:
“Gravity is a theory”.
When AGW is a theory:
“Gravity is something we observe”
When AGW is something we’ve observed:
“Gravity is just a name we give something”.

As an observation, AGW is far more a observational fact than Gravity is.

Gravity: Birds fly.
Gravity: Clouds don’t fall.
Gravity: Thistledown floats.
Gravity: Hot air balloons rise.
Gravity: The Moon stays up for billions of years, as do the sun, planets and stars.

We’ve observed the warming. We’ve observed our increase of CO2. We’ve observed CO2 causes IR to be trapped but not Vis. We’ve observed these things and called them AGW.

Birds fly.
Agree: Our understanding of why is ‘theory’
Clouds don’t fall.
Agree: Our understanding of why is ‘theory’
Thistledown floats.
Agree: Our understanding of why is ‘theory’
Hot air balloons rise.
Our understanding of why is ‘theory’
The Moon stays up for billions of years, as do the sun, planets and stars.
Agree: Our understanding of why is ‘theory’

Climate is the name we give to our experience of conditions of warming, cooling, wet, dry etc. and the combination of these in a chaotic system of weather and change.

Data gathering and knowledge tell us that CO2 has a warming effect (along with many other components) and we use this as input into tools like computer models to develop our understanding. This is and will be an ongoing process as more data and knowledge is gathered (like our understanding of our universe has changed and will continue to change beyond recognition of the present). This is what we call “Climate Theory”.

We had a theory that lasted 1500 years that the universe went round a stationary earth. What’s 150 supposed to indicate?

Lets try with ‘Light’ which is some form, force etc. which renders objects visible to our eye. To understand this we have come up with various ‘theories’ which are based on data and knowledge collected over the centuries. It acts as a particle, wave, fluid etc. and these theories have been useful in our development of technology and deepening understanding which still eludes us.

So we have ‘Light’ and ‘Theory of Light’. Stone age man had light because he could see. He didn’t need a theory to believe it.

Wasn’t science. the theory that the sun was the centre of the solar system is over 2000 years old. Religious texts were read to say otherwise.

CO2 produced by humans is causing warming and will, if left untreated will cause devastation for human civilisation. It is more solid a theory than Gravity.

And no, we don’t have a theory of light. What this has to do with AGW is anyone’s guess, but your increasingly insane babblings trying to avoid saying anything of substance is enlightening as to your state of mind: you’re a nut.

The first non-geocentric model of the Universe was proposed by the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus (d. 390 BC).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos

Aristarchus (310 BC – ca. 230 BC), was a Greek astronomer and mathematician, born on the island of Samos, in Greece. He presented the first known heliocentric model of the solar system, placing the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of the known universe.

This is nonsense. This is saying that the science is settled, that Climategate never happened, and that the output of climate models must be taken as fact. One makes no sense to demand that others must believe as they to to be rational or knowledgeable.

— daisym”

There are so many falsehoods and misrepresentations in you short paragraph it is very difficult to know where to begin.

The cause of modern (post circa ~1900) global warming is now settled. It is only disputed by cranks and those who wish to prevent government policy changes to prevent or mitigate global warming.

The only way modern GW can be explained is by increases in the concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases, in accordance with what is being observed. That changing the composition of the atmosphere can lead to it warming when other influences remain constant has long been known from experiment. The physical basis of GW by increasing GHG concentrations is now well understood in terms of quantum mechanics and radiative transfer.

Records and proxy records demonstrate that modern GW can not be explained/caused by variations in solar radiation output, nor changes to the orbit or axial tilt of the Earth., simply because either there has been no significant change to these, or any change is too small to have had the observed effect on atmospheric average temperature.

When all other plausible explanations have been investigated and rejected because they fail to match observations, the explanation that remains is very probably the correct explanation of what is being observed, if it matches observations. So it is with the change (rise) in atmospheric average temperature matching the change (rise) in GHG concentrations. Anyone who is rational and objective would conclude that the former is the cause of the latter. The more so since the cause has a well understood physical basis.

Now to climate models.
First no climate model can ever be entirely accurate. The purpose of climate modeling is to make prediction about the future and to test which of the possible causes of climate change best explain observations and to investigate the relative importance of these possible causes. That the most sophisticated numerical climate models can replicate past climate change with a high degree of accuracy indicates that predictions the make about about futer global warming trends are also likely to be accurate. However, the validity of anthropogenic global warming as an explanation of modern global warming does not stand of fall on the basis of climate models.

Your final comment…
“One makes no sense to demand that others must believe as they to to be rational or knowledgeable.”

First science is not based on belief. It is based on an objective rational consideration of the evidence available. Someone who is knowledgeable about a subject in science, will understand whya particular explanation is the correct one, why it is the correct explanation of observations. Now it may be that in few cases they have a flash of insight that can overturn the currently accepted explanation. But this is rare.

Communicating the findings of science to a wider audience is not based on preaching to that audience. It is based on educating, explaining the basis of the science and convincing people on the basis of logic and evidence. This is entirely different to religion.

What really annoys me about climate change denialists sauch as yourself, is that they have a preformed an opinion about the subject, based on apparently no understanding of the subject. They have formed a dogmatic opinion on the basis of their intuition. They think that their intuition is correct, because this is an easy subject to understand so they. must be correct. Wrong! They are wrong on all counts. It is not an easy subject to understand and intuition as so often in science, is wrong, as it is in this instance. I suggest that you wise up and listen to what scientists and the vast majority of climatologists specifically, are saying about the cause of modern climate change and that you realise that there are people who are far more intelligent and knowledgeable than you on this subject.

As Bejamin Franklin said and applies to you and other denialists:
“It is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

However some aspects of it are such the proven mechanism that causes GHG warming. Learn about quantum dynamics, black body radiation, thermodynamics and the lapse rate. These are all proven from theory, observation and the running of very different models, models from different organisations and in different countries.

There are many details about some forcing and feedbacks which require more work - that is how science proceeds - but enough is known to have a high degree of confidence in the fact that what is currently happening with changes global average temperatures and the effect such changes have on climates is outside of natural variability. You may like to research on what exactly ‘a high degree of confidence’ relates to and how it is achieved. Also check out what constrains ‘natural variability’.

Trouble is you see, statements such as yours can be rattled off at speed, often combined in a Gish Gallop (with which both Monckton and Plimer have demonstrated some familiarity) of pseudo-scientific memes, whereas each rebuttal takes time to provide an adequate explanation of the current state of knowledge and the science which got us there and in terms which a science-challenged layman can understand.

Unfortunately it takes a great deal of effort to reach a stage where one is familiar with even a small part of the science and frustration builds when the cognitively challenged, or just plain ideologically stupid, keep repeating the same tired mantras - as Richard Dawkins discovered when he interviewed Wend Wright.

My interest in the science goes beyond the physics and the chemistry and includes biology, ecology, evolution etc in which I have had a long interest going back about fifty years. Many scientific aspects pertinent to climate change can be assimilated by study a good introductory text on Oceanography – one such, but there are others, is

I point you to the UK Amazon site because that is the copy that I have (which is emblazoned Not For Sale in the United States) and indicates that other pricings may be available than shown at Amazon.com

I have had to unlearn much in that time so as to accommodate more recent advances in evolutionary science which moves on into another aspect when the role of viruses in the development of the human, and other species, genome is concerned. To me this is fascinating stuff and well explained in Frank Ryan’s book ‘Virolution’ - check it out - it will make you think.

Here is another pathetic repeated meme in this statement of yours and one which tells me you read silly stuff.

‘Clearly Faith based Doctrine.’

Your repeated distortions are based upon faith underpinned belief. That is dogma.

Knowledgeable may mean different things to believers and deniers. Countless people have told me that they believe because they watched “An Inconvenient Truth” and have heard the press confirm the claims of looming man-made disaster. They think they are knowledgeable.

If you look at the history of science, it should come as no surprise that the same evidence can give rise to very different beliefs, even in ‘knowledgeable’ scientists. It is also clear that our reasons for upholding the truth of any particular theory are never entirely rational or objective. I used to think that climate change negationists were either cynical manipulators of fear and ignorance or themselves victims of either or both these shortcomings: i.e. given over to saying what people want to hear or attempting to assuage their own worst fears as a defence mechanism.

But the fact is, that even ‘knowledgeable’ scientists get a kick out of being innovative, original and, yes, contrarian. Even scientists don’t like being cast as lemmings, even if half the time, the lemmings may be headed in the right direction.

Before a Republican even looks at the minutia of the science he sees the supporters of the Global Warming myth. Who are its True Believers? The far left. Haters of capitalism and breeding and consuming and religion. U.N. bureaucrats who have grasped for years for a scheme that would funnel billions of tax dollars their way to support their little kingdoms. Corporatists like Enron and GE who are more than happy to support a movement as long as they can make a killing. They see the cause led by another money-changer, the cartoonish and hypocritical Algore. And, of course, the self-selected priesthood of climate science, the Team at RealClimate, dripping with their arrogance.

It boggles the mind that ANY Republican would throw in with the most contemptible our society has to offer. BTW, the scientific case is only overwhelming to you Alarmists. The disengaged public only picks up that no matter what the weather brings, Climate Change is to blame! Drought, floods, lots of hurricanes, no hurricanes, no snow, lots of snow, hot, cold, just right. Its Climate Change!

Hate to break it to you Mike, but religion & anti science has & always will be from the conservative side. I know it’s hard to accept all those duped fools voting for your side, but there you have it. You think they want intelligent design taught in schools because they think science has the right answers?

More fail from Mike. I run a business, I like capitalism & isn’t it you guys that keep banging on about Al Gore just wanting to make millions off green investments? Well? Kind of contradict your self there don’t you? Does he want to destroy capitalism or benefit from it?

“Corporatists like Enron and GE who are more than happy to support a movement as long as they can make a killing.”

Yet you have no problem with the richest people & the largest corporations on the planet opposing AGW to maintain profits?

“And, of course, the self-selected priesthood of climate science, the Team at RealClimate, dripping with their arrogance.”

Yet, you probably make a b-line straight to WUWT every day. The largest denialist site on the web. Self pronounced experts on denialism, anti science & run by….non scientists.

Gee, thanks for making my case so easy. I have followed these discussions for six years and if there is one consistent characteristic of a True Believer, it is their religious bigotry. You equate belief in God with stupidity. Of course, that is not helpful in a mission to sway your fellow countrymen. I tell you what, how about we frame this so no Christian would think of supporting your position. When I go to church Sunday I’ll tell my pastor exactly what the “environmentalists” think of religion. Hopefully, we can take this message far and wide. “The Greenies hate you because you believe in God!!” Yeah, I can work with that.

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE